AARF Shirt Design Contest
Win $50, a Shirt and Fame!
The Anguilla Animal Rescue Organization — a nonprofit agency dedicated to the welfare of dogs and cats on Anguilla — is looking for talented and creative artists to help us design a new design for T-shirts and other merchandise.
One of the ways AARF generates revenue to support our operations is through the sale of T–shirts, hats and other items. These tasteful items showcase the AARF and Anguilla names, our tropical environment, and, of course, our wonderful cats and dogs. On past merchandise, we’ve used such artwork as our logo (which shows animals on a life raft), an image of a nested dog and cat under palm trees and stylized long dogs.
Now we are looking for a new design and are offering US$50 cash and a shirt containing the winning design1 to that talented artist who submits the winning design. Credit to the winning artist will also appear on our website, Facebook and more, so this is a chance to add a winning design to your artist portfolio!
The contest ends on July 31st at 5 p.m. Anguilla time, so there is plenty of time to be creative. This contest page will be updated as needed.
1If we choose not to go with a design, we’ll still award the cash, a shirt and credit to the best design entered.
Design Format Requirements and TIps
Our designs have traditionally offered messages of hope, nice–looking dogs and cats and, fun, and, of course, great representation of Anguilla and the Caribbean. We hope your creativity can continue in that vein.
Designs have to eventually be printed on the shirt or merchandise, so the final design must be in a format of at least 300 dots per inch (dpi). We presume artists will use well known design applications. Contact us with your app of choice and we’ll make sure the local printers can handle it.
Versions for judging may be submitted to us in smaller dpi formats to save time and space, but the final prize is contingent on a printer–ready version of the artwork.
We suggest minimal use of text as it is hard to show up on a shirt. Instead of spelling out the full Anguilla Animal Rescue Foundation name, the AARF acronym can suffice. Words mentioning Anguilla, BWI and the Caribbean are certainly welcome, as would be an outline of Anguilla – whatever you can think of.
Judicious use of colors is recommended, as printing shirts with many different colors may be hard to do well, or be expensive. Also, your art may appear on shirts (or hats or other items) of different colors and styles. Past designs have demonstrated good uses of shades and colors. While we don’t have the official color specs for common Anguilla colors (such as on the Anguilla flag), we of course have our web page colors (the dark blue, orange for example) and can help approximate official color specs. Email us if interested. That said, we’re open to anything, color-wise!
(Finally, some people are afraid of dogs and cats, so we would prefer imagery that suggest calm, peaceful, playful and loving dogs and cats.)
Past Designs
Here is a summary of some past designs, or you can see our merchandise page. We have enjoyed our designs for their tastefulness, messages of hope, nice looking dogs and cats and great representation of Anguilla and the Caribbean.
Click on any image for an enlargement.
AARF logo (life raft) Design
This graphic shows dogs, cats, the sea – and provides a powerful message at the same time.
This is the AARF logo, which shows three animals on a yellow life raft: a small black and white kitten, a larger brown dog with a collar (a symbol of good animal care practice) and a small black and white dog.
Gray clouds suggest an urgent need to find good homes for these animals.
The raft (floating on blue waves representing the Caribbean sea surrounding Anguilla) shows that these animals have protectors in AARF and its many supporters.
Finally, the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, signifying hope for these deserving animals
Nested Dog and Cat Design
Designed by Steve Stanczyk of Kramer Printing (near Madison Wisconsin), this design nicely integrates dogs and cats, the lifeboat concept and really gives off a tropical vibe with waves and palm trees.
We are extremely fond of this design: it’s tasteful, great to look at and has subtle messages about where we are and what we do.
Dog on Surfboard (Blocky Design)
A modern take on an Anguilla dog on a surfboard. The head is more square and block-shaped but it's clearly a dog. The surfboard, waves and palm trees show a fun beach scene.
While this graphic does not have the AARF name prominently displayed (there is a tiny AARF on the bone tag), the AARF name would certainly need to be part of the design – or somewhere nearby in the same style.
Long Dog Design
An older design, this is a fun design that perfectly captures the look and attitude of Anguilla’s famous long dogs. It has a nice caption to explain the graphic – and maybe to even start a conversation about these dogs with that interesting shape.
Questions? Thoughts? Contact Us
Please send us an email (shown in graphical form below to defeat spammers). Please use the word “contest” in your subject line so that we can direct you to the right group.
Thank you!
